Word count: 567
Summary of the Reading
This paper presents the design and evaluation of a system that is designed to help people check the validity of claims. The system starts with a user entering a claim into the system. The system then shows the user a list of articles related to the claim with a prediction that is based on the articles, about whether or not the claim is true. The system will give a percentage chance for whether the article is true. Each article that the system shows also shows a reputation score for the source of the article and a support score for the article. The user can then adjust these if they don’t think that the system has accurate information.
The system seemed to help users come to the right conclusions when it had the right data but also seemed to make human judgements worse when the system had inaccurate information. This shows the usefulness of such a system and also gives a reason to be careful about implementing it.
Reflections and Connections
I think that this article tackles a very real and very important problem. Misinformation is more prevalent now than ever, and it is getting harder and harder to find the truth. This can have real effects on people’s lives. If people get the wrong information about a medication or a harmful activity, they may experience a preventable injury or even death. Misinformation can also have a huge impact on politics and may get people to vote in a way they might not otherwise.
The paper brings up the fact that people may over rely on a system like this, just blindly believing the results of the system without putting more thought into it and I think that is the paradox of this system. People want correct information and we want it to be easy to find out if something is correct or not, but the fact of the matter is that it’s just not easy to find out if something is true or not. A system like this would be great when it worked and told people the truth, but it would make the problem worse when it came to the wrong conclusion and then made more people more confident in their wrong answer. No matter how good a system is, it will still fail. Even the best journalists in the world, writing for the most prestigious newspapers in the world, will get things wrong. And, a system like this one will get things wrong even more often. The fact of the matter is that people should always be skeptical and they should always do research before believing that something is true or not, because no easy answer like this can ever be 100% right and if it can’t be 100% right, we shouldn’t trick ourselves into trusting it any more than we should. This is a powerful tool, but we should not rely on it or anything like it.
Questions
- Should we even try to make systems like this if they will be wrong some of the time?
- How can we make sure that people don’t over rely on systems like this? Can we still use them without only using them?
- What’s the best way to check facts? How do you check your facts?
